Today, in the ever changing world of computers, keeping up to date with the latest processor, largest harddrive, best brand, et cetera, can get to be a serious hassle. This guide is designed to help simplify the process of trying to decypher what all the numbers mean, so you can better choose YOUR next desktop computer.

Flavors
Yes, you read right, flavors. There are many different versions, or as some like to call "flavors" of desktop computers available, and trying to figure out what flavor you're looking for, can help to nail down what numbers you should pay attention to, and why.

As far as flavors go, the common ones are Gaming, Home Theatre, Family, and Home Office. There is also Office, but for the notion that you're reading this for personal information/selection assistance, we won't cover them.

• Gaming: Powerful, high performance computer designed around the need to play games without interruption (aside from mother yelling that dinner is ready)
• Home Theatre: Powerful, multi-input/output friendly computer designed around recording/playback of connected media devices, including itself
• Family: That one computer you leave in the living room for the children to do homework on, and for you to browse around the web and read guides like this
• Home Office: Computer designed with stability and longevity in mind, usually a Family type just dedicated to 1 person

With a Gaming computer, the big numbers (and information you want to focus on), are the CPU speed (nowadays measured in "Ghz", which stands for Gigahertz), the memory (3 bits of information to look for here, MB (or GB in some cases; MB stands for Megabytes, GB for Gigabytes), Type, and Speed), the video card's brand and model (including memory), and audio card brand/model. The higher the number on the CPU, the faster it is, and the better that usually is for gaming, but with a fast CPU, you'll need lots of fast memory. Common types of memory are DDR, and DDR2, and their speeds range from 200Mhz (DDR low), to 800Mhz (DDR2 high). DDR: 200. 266, 333, 400. DDR2: 400, 533, 666, 800. The higher the number for the type, the faster the memory is and the faster it can communicate with that fast CPU, and the higher the size (MB or GB), the better. The video card, you will need to look at the manufacturer's website (nVidia and ATI are the 2 primary graphics processor manufacturers), to see what their latest card revision was. (At the time of writing the best ATI card is the x1950, and for nVidia is the 8800GTX.) Compare the revision of the card in the computer to the latest revision from the graphics processor you'll be buying. The same somewhat applies with sound cards, buying a gaming computer does require a bit of research into the parts that are included, but is well worthwhile, in spending the least, while getting the most for that dollar.

Home Theatre computers need to be approached with caution. You either are very gutsy to just go out and buy one (they're for one purpose and don't do much else well), or an audio visual fanatic looking for a new peice of universal equipment to accent your current setup. With these machines, the numbers that tend to matter the most, are the CPU and graphics cards. You'll need a good speed CPU to handle recording, and a good graphics card to be able to make the capture go smoothly, or show smoothly on playback to your TV. Most of these computers also include a TV Tuner card, which allows you to connect your cable or antenna to it and use it as a cable box/tivo.

Family computers, are the most general systems and usually encompass the children's homework duties, a bit of gaming, and mostly browsing around the web. Due to the fact that most of these tasks put forth (aside from gaming), are very lightweight, you can skimp back on the processor (CPU) speed, and even the memory. You can also not worry about the sound card, or even what video card comes in it most of the time.

Home Office computers, are the ones in the household that are most commonly the ones to cause the biggest frustration when they stop working, simply because once they go on strike, you can no longer work! These machines you can skimp back on the CPU again, but try to keep the memory around 1GB (1024MB), or as close to as you can get, since memory lends itself to being a good supportive tree trunk for that treehouse filled with ever growing information.

Tips and Suggestions
The most common mistake I've seen working as a computer technician, is that people purchase a family-flavored computer, and then start doing their home office work on it, while little Johnny spends his free time on the computer downloading the latest albums from his favorite bands, and unwittingly invites many unwanted guests into the computer that rob performance and eat your work. (Read "The Top 10 Mistakes Computer Users Make" guide here on eBay for more information.)

Another common mistake: Repurposing without replacing. When purchasing a computer for one purpose, make sure you're staying with that purpose, and not repurposing one flavor of computer to do another's job, i.e. Gaming turned Family, or Family turned Home Theatre, unless you go in and replace the nessicary parts to effectively repurpose the computer to it's new default tasks.
Example: Why wouldn't I buy a Gaming computer for Home Office work, wouldn't the faster processor and large amounts of memory only make a much more stable Home Office computer? While that -might- be true, it often is not. There are many factors for this. Cost is a major factor: Gaming flavored computers tend to cost 2-3x more than Family or Home Office flavored computers. Another factor is a lot of Gaming computers, while perfectly fine for Gaming, might also fall under the realm called "The Bleeding Edge", which is essentially when you're getting parts that just came out, and have little known about their problems if any, and fixes to said problems, if any. You don't want your Home Office computer crashing every time to go to save that document or start a search because it triggers a problem with the video card when showing the animated paperclip. The same principals go for all the different flavors I listed here. For one reason or another if not multiple, you wouldn't want to repurpose one to do another's tasks. Instead, you're better off buying 2 cheaper computers one of each flavor you need, with the kind of specifications you need or desire.

I hope this quick guide has been of some help to anyone, please remember to leave feedback if it did or didn't, it's how we grow as guide-authors, and the guides get better.